Typically, a power management integrated circuit PMIC comprises a large number of power converters. These power converters may differ e.g. in terms of power consumption, noise generation, dropout voltages and maximum load currents that they support. However, during the time of designing the PMIC, the specific requirements of the application may not be sufficiently defined and the power converters may not be optimally selected and positioned on the printed circuit board PCB.
For example, a frequently occurring problem is that an output current is needed which exceeds a maximum output current a specific power converter can deliver. In this situation, in order to avoid overloading the specific power converter, one possibility is to connect a second power converter in parallel to provide the required maximum output current. However, when coupling two or more power converters, stability problems may arise. In addition, when coupling two power converters with different gains, only one of both power converters may be effectively regulating whereas the other power converter may be e.g. off by overvoltage or in current limit by under voltage.